The Translation Of Idioms In Half A Lifelong Romance From The Perspective Of Cultural Translation Theory

Idioms are closely linked with history background,religious belief,regional feature and cultural custom.Due to the cultural difference between the two languages,translator encounters various problems when translating idioms.Under the guidance of cultural translation theory,this thesis analyzes and discusses the translation of idioms in the English translation of Half a Lifelong Romance.The idioms in the Half a Lifelong Romance are divided into five categories: two-part allegorical sayings,proverbs,allusions,set phrases and common sayings.It is found that the factors influencing idiom translation mainly lie in the difference of social custom,historical culture,thought,material culture between the two different cultures.When Karen S.Kingsbury is translating common sayings,she utilizes foreignization strategy to directly translate it;when translating the idioms with more profound cultural connotations such as allusions and set phrases,she adopts the domestication strategy by using the method of liberal translation,mutual lending;when translating proverbs,she uses liberal translation while keeping the original sentence structure.As for the special idioms such as two-part allegorical sayings,she interprets them by literal translation or literal translation or the combination of literal translation and liberal translation.Generally speaking,based on the principle of promoting Chinese culture,Karen adopts foreignization strategy to the most degree,but when the context is not easy for target readers,she uses domestication strategy to bring the inner meaning expressed by the writer,which greatly promotes Chinese culture in the targeting language.Nevertheless,there are several mistakes made by Karen on the ground that cultural default like material default and social cultural default results in the misunderstanding of the profound meaning of the original idioms.Through the analysis of idiom translation,the factors influencing idiom translation focus on cultural understanding.For those who are easy for target reader to understand,foreignization strategy should be greatly adopted,otherwise,domestication is a way to present the source context.Therefore,translators should be proficient in bilingualism and learn bicultural knowledge as well.Only by fully understanding the different cultural connotations to strengthen the understanding of the culture contained in the source language and the target language,is it possible to bridge the communication between different cultures.